My Grandfather

A month or two ago I turned 60 and it got me to thinking of all the changes that I have witnessed. My earliest recollections are of things and events that occurred in the 1950’s. Since then there have been great changes in technology, transportation, medicine, governments, demographics, politics and the environment. It seems everything has changed to some degree or another. I initially thought that my generation has lived through more change than any previous generation. This got me to comparing of the changes that occurred in my grandfather’s lifetime to that of mine. I soon realized that such a comparison is not even close. The changes my grandfather witnessed were certainly more profound than those I have experienced.

My grandfather, Herman Selseley Ingram, was born in 1885 in Calgary, Alberta. He always claimed to be the first white person born there and, if not the first, he was certainly one of the first. His family moved back east to Ontario in 1897 to take care of his grandfather’s farm near Spencerville. As a young man, Herman left the farm in 1901 and went to work with Canadian Pacific Railway as a telegraph operator. He had a very successful career eventually becoming Superintendent of Telegraphs for eastern Canada. He retired in 1946 and eventually passed away in 1970 in his 85^th year.

In 1885, the living conditions in the Canadian west were crude by any standards. Just look at this picture of the Ingram family farm in Dewinton Alberta, Herman's first home, and you get an idea of how difficult life must have been in those days. In that small dwelling there was no electricity, running water, toilets or central heating. This was before electric lights, telephones or automobiles were in common use and 18 years before man made his first heavier than air flight.

When granddad died in 1970, he was living in a comfortable house in Prescott Ontario that had all the modern conveniences of the time - central heating, running water, electric lights, television, radio, telephone, electric stove, refrigerator, automatic washer and dryer. He also owned his own car. All of these things were not available or did not exist at the time of his birth. In contrast, I have always lived in a house that has had most of these comforts. Today they might be more modern but, in essence, have not changed much.  In his lifetime Herman witnessed two world wars, the creation of the atomic bomb, the cold war, man's first flight in the Kitty Hawk to the flight of a 747 jumbo jet. He witnessed man’s landing on the moon. There is no doubt that the changes in his lifetime greatly exceed what I have seen.

So far . . . .